‘After-Play’ looks at events past curtain’s fall

Members of the cast of Playhouse on the Square’s “After-Play” rehearse Monday at the theater. The show opens today.

Members of the cast of Playhouse on the Square’s “After-Play” rehearse Monday at the theater. The show opens today.

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Members of the cast of Playhouse on the Square’s “After-Play” rehearse Monday at the theater. The show opens today.

Members of the cast of Playhouse on the Square’s “After-Play” rehearse Monday at the theater. The show opens today.

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‘After-Play’ looks at events past curtain’s fall

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Playhouse on the Square’s newest production, Anne Meara’s “After-Play,” is aptly titled, because it’s about what happens after.

Two couples who have been lifelong friends, despite having lived on opposite coasts in recent years, get together in New York to see a show and have dinner after. During the course of the meal, they realize that the distance may have changed all of them more than they initially thought.

It may seem a bit unrelatable, with the focus on two couples with careers in show business, but it’s really not, director Kim Shafer said.

“This is real life,” she said of Meara’s carefully crafted script. “These couples talk about things that resonate.”

And they do so with a pretty even balance of comedy and drama, Shafer said.

“With this story, the comedy and drama are so interspersed,” she said. “I think what people bring to it in their own life experiences will make a difference. It’s a very, very funny play, but there are some very heavy moments, just like life.

“And they find their way through them, they keep trying.”

It’s not just the jokes that add the humor but the style of the jokes, Shafer said.

“Even the comedy in the show is all over the place,” she said. “There’s a little bit of vaudeville shtick, because the husbands are talking about how they loved that growing up. One of the wives is very acerbic, her jokes tend to be more cutting. (The other wife is) more in Anne Meara style. It’s not just one cheesy joke after another.”

It’s humor that continues to keep the cast entertained, despite the repetition of rehearsal.

“One actor, I think he told me last week that he’s done over 40 shows over the years,” Shafer said. “He’s laughed so hard and so much at rehearsals, because the people in the show care about the show and want to do a good job.”

Part of that is Shafer’s handpicked cast.

“It’s a show with only seven people, and there’s not a lot of action in it,” she said, noting that much of the play is spent with the two couple sitting around a dinner table. “So you have to have the right people to pull it off. You can’t just have people sitting at a table in a restaurant for an hour and a half talking.”

The cast she got includes Barry Weiss, Laurie McCoy, Mike Schneider and Felicia Coulter as the two couples, Zach Pickens as their very patient waiter, and Craig Steenerson and Dorothy Hutchinson-Gross as a third couple who venture into the restaurant at one point.

“We talk about it being a mutual admiration society,” Shafer said of the cast. “No one’s really star-struck, but there’s so much experience on that stage.”

Comedy or not, the cast has embraced the play.

“All of us have connected with something about the play,” Shafer said. “It has become a story that’s important to tell.”

Then she reconsidered.

“I hate to say ‘important,’ because we’re not curing cancer,” she said. “But there’s something (in the play) they want to express.”

Shafer and her cast hope the audience enjoys their evening and can forget about their troubles for a while.

“But if you leave (and think about it some more), it’s been a great night,” she said. “Think about your relationship with your kids or how you treated somebody.

“Good theater entertains, but it can make you think. I think this will do both.”

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If you go …

“After-Play” will be staged at 7:30 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday at Playhouse on the Square in downtown Jacksonville. Tickets, which are $10, are available in advance at Our Town Books or at the door.